


One Cold Stick of the Needle

by Gunderpants



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Cannibalism, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Squick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-25
Updated: 2014-10-25
Packaged: 2018-02-22 14:33:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2511179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gunderpants/pseuds/Gunderpants
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Like any good war criminal, Lucius Malfoy lived out the last days of his life in a comfortable hospital bed after a life of inflicting the kind of pain and torture upon others that he deserved himself. </p><p>His nurse has other plans for him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Cold Stick of the Needle

**Author's Note:**

> Written pre-HBP so no longer canon compliant. Published 2007.

Like any good war criminal, Lucius Malfoy lived out the last days of his life in a comfortable hospital bed after a life of inflicting the kind of pain and torture upon others that he deserved himself. Death did not come to him from a blade in the stomach, or a green-lit spell to the heart, but from a niggling cough that never went away and a swelling growth over his spleen that no healer could hope to fix.

The room set aside for him at Saint Mungos was brightly lit from the large windows, and he had a spacious, private room to himself; not the entire wing that his distinction should have afforded him, but perhaps good enough given his public disgrace after the defeat ten years earlier. He should have been in a prison cell or being led to a row of hooded executioners, but instead he felt the sunlight on his face as the assistant healers quelled his pain with the finest potions money could buy, and the warm, dry hand of his wife stroking his forehead, and her lips being pressed to his own. The distinction from night passing into day, and days passing into weeks went unnoticed as the draughts given to quell his aches and nausea left him on a pleasant, warm, pharmaceutical float, and as he saw his wife and son stand at his door every morning with tired, sad smiles on their faces he never thought he could be a luckier man. He would never recover and the illness would claim him quickly, but he had his family and the best possible care available, and the world's finest healer tending to him.

He never once thought to ask her name, though she knew his on the day of his admission. She'd come in after his family had left him for the night to give him a sleeping potion - administered in the queer muggle fashion of having it injected into his veins with a needle. Actually, some of those old muggle remedies really are quite good: you feel the effects much more quickly than you would if you just swallowed the sleeping potion. He weakly nodded in assent, wincing as the needle slipped beneath his dermis and filled his veins with a buzzing languor. Her doe-brown eyes were soft and lovely as she watched him fall asleep, and when he lapsed into unconsciousness all he could feel was her hand on his forehead. 

***

The cries of war came to Lucius on the second night. Once they accompanied dreams of victory and valour - now they forced him to wake up feeling sick to his stomach, with his conscience tied in a hundred tiny knots and his hoarse voice calling out for someone, anyone, to come help him.

She was the first to rush to his aid. "Hush," she whispered, filling the syringe as quickly as she could and tapping at the bubbles of air. His arms trembled so much that she had to pin one down in order to dose him, and as the shaking subsided he watched her observe him with a concerned look on her thin, lined face. "Bad dreams?"

He nodded, not sure of what to say to this complete stranger. She handed him a glass of water, and he drained it thirstily as she sat primly on the edge of his bed.

"Lots of the patients in these wards get bad dreams. I don't blame them. I get awful dreams from being in this place myself." Her voice was soft, and when his glass was empty she wrested it from him gently. "It's certainly not unusual, Mr Malfoy."

"Yes, but not everyone has the kind of dreams that I get."

"Were you in the war? I don't remember much of it myself, but I know people who..." She trailed off, apologetic to the look of shock on his face. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have pried like that--"

"It's all right. I'm just surprised you don't have much of a recollection of it."

"Oh, well, my mind gets a bit scatty sometimes," she laughed, weakly. "You lose these things in old age."

"You can't be that old - as old as me, that is. Maybe thirty-five, forty?"

"Twenty-eight."

He almost couldn't believe it with the lines etched into her soft skin - skin with the kind of yellowish tone that naturally tan people get when they avoid the sun for too long - and the odd smattering of grey to creep into her short brown hair. "Well, definitely younger than me."

"What do you remember of the war?"

He wanted to open his mouth and confess a hundred different sins: a hundred bodies, one body equalling one sin, but that figure would never work out because there were often worse transgressions than murder. "Ghastly business, really."

"I'll bet it was." She stood, and gathered the glass and the used needle. "I'll be back at three for your next round," she said quietly, and left his room with a smile. He felt the warmth she left in the air around him, and the niggling feelings of guilt crept up in his stomach once more.

***

He came to look forward to seven o'clock in the morning and three o'clock in the afternoon more than any other time in the day when Narcissa and Draco weren't with him. He'd grown used to the sound of soft footsteps up the hall signalling the end of his pain, and it was perhaps the effects of the anaesthesia playing havoc with his mind, but he thought she grew more wonderful with every visit as she brought him books from her own collection to help him pass the day. The pages were dogeared, and it was obvious that she'd read them over at least a dozen times each. "They're muggle books," he remarked when she left them on his bedside table.

"They're ones I liked when I was a child... why, don't you like muggle books?"

He tried at once to formulate a scathing remark as to muggle culture and muggleborns, but he couldn't muster anything more than mild apathy. "Never really read any," he said indifferently. 

"I've read lots," she said. "Before I found out I was a witch, I'd spend all day reading. Sometimes I was late for school because I just lay in bed with a book."

He imagined a tiny, brown-haired girl curled up in bed, and was surprised to see a girl in his mind; not something less than human, but a girl with blood rushing through her veins and quicksilver darting through her mind. "Which one would you recommend I read?"

She frowned at her pile of books, and pulled one off the top. "This was one of my father's favourites," she said. 

He accepted it, lifting it to read the cover. "What language is it in?"

"Oh! It's in English, translated from Russian."

He turned it over to read the back, his face blanching slightly at the description on the blurb. "Thank you very much. It looks pretty long, I don't know..." He trailed off as a lump dissolved in the back of his throat. "I think I'll start reading it soon, in which case."

He felt a soft, dry hand over his, and he smiled grimly. "Mr Malfoy, I'm sorry."

"You're not what's killing me." He turned the book open to the first page, and felt the heat of an exceptionally hot evening early in July in the back of his mind. "I think I'll make a start."

She nodded, and left quietly, her soft-soled shoes making little sound on the stone floors. As the door shut quietly behind her, he saw the young man on the pages lighting a fire, but when the man tightened the ropes he seemed to disappear from the pages altogether.

***

He never made it to the end of the book. In fact, as he read further and further, he wanted to hurl it across the room. But eventually he lacked the strength to raise his head from the pillow, and his waking hours turned to mere minutes as his strength drained from him with the passing days. When he slept he heard the voices and saw the faces, and the green light danced in his eyes. He slept uneasily, waking every few hours, only to drift back into another uneasy slumber.

"Didn't like it?" She was bringing in more potion with her each day, and his arms stung from the constant barrage of little needles in his forearms. He winced as the silver dove beneath his skin, and the potions buzzed in his veins.

"Some of the things that happened... it was hard to read it all."

"Can I get you anything else to read?"

"No, no. I'll be fine. Did Narcissa say when she'd be in?"

"Two thirty, like she always does."

"Can she stay longer today?"

"You need your medicine at three, Mr Malfoy."

"Can't it wait?"

"I can hold off another ten minutes or so. Are you going to eat your breakfast?"

He stared at the bowl of tepid porridge on his table, and shook his head weakly. She nodded in silence, and picked it up, heading for the door.

He felt the words bursting on his lips, and as one foot was out the door they came out, as strong as he could make them: "I'm scared."

"I--"

"I hate waking up not knowing if I'm dreaming or dead. Can you... do you earn much money in your job?"

She looked askance at him. "I am a Healer, Mr Malfoy, I do earn a comfortable living."

"My family has a lot of money. We can be rid of a thousand galleons and hardly notice it. I hate the pain and the sickness, and I don't want my wife and son to see me when I get worse."

"Mr Malfoy--"

"You can give me a bigger dose and I won't feel anything."

"I would be sent to Azkaban for ten years if I ever aided any patient under my care to end their life," she whispered harshly. "Don't ever ask me to do that, I will say no and inform senior healers to keep constant watch over you."

"I'm sorry." He tried to shift in the bed, but his muscles ached with every movement. "I shouldn't have asked."

"It's fine," she said coolly, pulling his blankets up to his chest. "Have a sleep before your wife arrives. I'll come back to clean you up before she gets here."

***

She came to him in his many hours of sleep. Every time she dosed him, or cleaned him, or sat on the edge of his bed and watched him as he slept, it came through the translucent skin of his eyelids and projected itself in technicolour.

Her touch was always gentle, her voice always soft and melodious. Her skin was soft as it brushed against his forearm, and her doe-brown eyes always looked over him with tenderness. She was everything a woman should be; what Narcissa used to be until she got too thin and bony. Her tendons jutted out harshly against her pale skin, and her jewellery always clashed against her colouration. Everything about her was gently curved and soft - the lines around her eyes warmed her entire face with each smile, and there was nothing sudden or harsh or cruel about her. Not like a pinched, hard coldness had come to Narcissa with the fear of growing old.

She was like a deer in the forest, and in his dreams he was the hunter in pursuit.

***

They didn't come. They'd never missed a day, and then out of the blue, nothing - no owl, no message, no nothing. 

It was the loneliest half hour of Lucius' life as he waited for his healer to come. He couldn't hear anything but the clicking of heels along the corridor outside, and the ringing in his ears with nothing to break the sound waves. He waited listlessly, drifting in and out of altered states of consciousness - he'd remember things that had never happened, or see things that were entirely inconsequential, and then snap back into full alertness with the sound of footfalls outside.

Finally, she came in, carrying his tray of potions, the needle and a covered plate. "I'm sorry I'm late," she whispered breathlessly. "I got a bit caught up with another case."

"It's quite all right, you weren't interrupting anything," he said bitterly.

She took a seat beside him, and fiddled with his potions. "What happened?"

"They just... Draco and Narcissa, they didn't come see me today."

"Oh. Well, that's odd."

"I know. They probably had something urgent, some pressing occasion.

"Mm. Well, this might cheer you up!" She flicked her wand, and the covering on the plate vanished in an instant. Lucius sat up a little in his bed to see a pie sitting on the plate - wide, and smelling vaguely of greasy, salty meat. "I'm not much of a cook, but I had too much left over when I was cooking dinner last night, and I thought I'd bring you some. Beats the hospital food, at any rate!"

"I... thanks." The aroma of the meat and pasty on the air lingered high, and his mouth watered. "That's really nice of you."

"Would you like to try some now?" With a flick of her wand, she conjured a sharp knife, which she wiped against her robes. "I know you've had lunch, but from the looks of things you couldn't keep it down."

"Well... I suppose I can try a little bit, can't I."

She looked strangely enthusiastic at his assent, and she cut a large slice with zeal. He didn't think that he'd be able to finish the whole piece, but he smiled weakly as she brought the first mouthful up to him on a little silver fork. "Open wide..."

It truthfully was delicious, though he couldn't place the meat: it was slightly gamey, and at first guess he would have placed it as being venison. She'd loaded up another large forkful for him rather quickly, and it was fed to him without delay. "This is quite good, actually," he said after swallowing, the lumps of food hurting his throat on the way down. "I might have to save some for later, I think."

"But you'd hurt my feelings," she said, loading up another forkful with a mournful look on her face. "Come on, just another few bites."

He acquiesced, trying to at least chew the food a little. But she was feeding him so quickly that he almost swallowed without chewing. The filling scalded his mouth and throat, and he felt the prongs of the fork poke him harshly in the mouth with each morsel. "Please, I don't know if I can eat any more."

There was no more softness or docility in her face as she loaded the last piece of the slice onto the fork. "Eat up." She forced it into his mouth, and he could feel his cheeks bleeding from the roughness with the utensil. He pulled away, fearful and sickened, as she smiled down at him with a glimmer of madness in her eye.

"Did you like it? Was it good?"

"It was, it was good, I did like it--"

"What's the matter, Malfoy? Was it too much?"

He saw her hand grip the fork with vicelike strength, and he froze in the sheets. He knew there was something reminiscent in her defiance: he'd seen it once on the girl he--

"Do you know who I am, Mr Malfoy? Or have centuries of inbreeding killed your ability to recognise faces."

He reached blindly for anything to protect himself: a pillow, a book, a knife, but the space around him was scarily bereft of any item that might come to his aide. "I... who..."

"What do you remember of the war, Malfoy? Was it the fact that you spent most of it behind bars, unable to free yourself? Or was it the time you did spend out of prison?" 

"You don't know what you're talking about--"

"Oh, I do, Mr Malfoy. I was the cleverest witch of my age. I always know what I'm talking about."

He felt his innards freeze as he watched her set the pie dish aside coolly. Her face was calm, but her eyes glinted maniacally. "You... I didn't think any of you survived--"

"Oh. Well, none of us did, really." She smiled, and he wanted to run when he saw the sharp edge of her slightly-yellowed teeth. "I mean, you can't expect the Weasleys to have survived. Not after what you did to them. Lupin and Tonks - well, they really couldn't walk away from it. Not with their legs being cut off and all. Harry, though! Harry lived. He's in the room right above yours, did you know that?" She kicked her legs out theatrically, and looked upward. "He's more 'the boy who would have been better off dead', these days though. He's never going to leave here. But at least Neville Longbottom can spend some time with him when he sees his parents."

"I can explain--"

"Look, really, this isn't one of those things that gets funnier with time. I mean, I might have had a laugh about it, sure. But that's probably because my parents spent the first two years after it happened pumping me full of muggle drugs from their dental surgery just to keep me from killing myself, or someone else." She looked at him, and any pretence of a smile vanished from her face. "You stole ten years from me, Malfoy."

"Whatever it is you want... my family, we have money, I can make arrangements--"

"Arrangements?!" The word came out in a barking, disgusted laugh, and for a moment she almost resembled his sister-in-law. "Oh, you can't buy people back. You can't buy the years I spent strapped to a bed because you thought I was a lesser person than you." She stopped herself, and he watched her take a deep breath as the mounting dread escalated in the back of his mind. "But arrangements. I'm sure we can come to some kind of arrangement."

"What have you--" 

She reached for the little blunt knife and the pie dish. "Would you like some more to eat?" Her voice was oddly stable as she cut a small sliver. "I don't really like meat pie, to tell you the truth, I don't want to have to take it home."

He stared at her, and something horrible inside him clicked; he felt the food in his stomach churning violently, and he shook his head weakly as he moaned in recognition. "No, no..."

"Yes, Mr Malfoy. They won't be coming tomorrow, either." 

He remembered his son talking about the things that awful mudblood Granger had done at school; he remembered the hexes and the brutality and even the thought of Draco caused him to choke. She wasn't the beautiful, graceful doe anymore; she was the gangly, cruel child whose hair was falling out far before her time, and he watched her jab the needle into the bottle of potion, hitting the exact centre of the bottle with precision. "You--"

"Hmm? Oh, it's all right. Nobody will be bothered to look for me, I cleaned up well." She held the syringe in front of her, frowning as she tapped at the bubbles. 

"You said you'd never harm a patient--" He watched the potion - a brighter green than the one she normally gave him at three o'clock - glint in the tube like a sickening gem, and every hair on his body stood on end.

"Oh. Right. Well, that's inconvenient." She lowered the syringe to his skin, peering over his forearm for a patch of clear veins. "But I brought it along anyway, and it was really hard to get a hold of in the first place, so--"

"You worthless little--" His frail fingers tried to dig into her arm and pull her away from him, but she merely shifted her arm as she adjusted the needle in her hand. She hesitated, then jabbed it deep in his forearm - the needle bending on bone as the poison flooded into his veins and through his body. He cried out, pushing at her feebly, but she merely stood and packed away the needle. He felt burning at the point where the tip pierced his skin, and soon it was spreading through his arms and up into his chest. His lungs ached, and his chest burned painfully with every breath. 

"If you want a vision of the future, imagine your cause being remembered most hatefully, and your family no longer infecting my life." She pulled the blankets over him, and gathered her possessions into a battered carpet bag.

In his last moments of life, Hermione Granger had left the room entirely.

***


End file.
